UK Customs ludicrously claim 'nude' rugby poster is obscene

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This is completely ridiculous and like something out of puritanical Catholic Ireland!

HM Customs have been an awful lot more lenient over the last ten years or so, only impounding stuff when it's obvious that the material is seriously obscene (like animal porn, or maybe films like August Underground, though I haven't heard of films like that being seized in a long time). They let through some quite nasty films without confiscating them at all - a far cry from the days when they used to seize 'video nasties' and titles like A Clockwork Orange. Which is why I find this story so bizarre and so completely out of step with modern HMRC practice.

If I didn't know better I'd have thought this was an April Fool prank story.

Last edited by Tequila on 14 Jan 2013, 10:49 am, edited 2 times in total.

Too many rear ends in it for some people.

If this was pornographic, I wonder what these people would think, if they were walking through Vienna and would see the poster advertisements on the streets for the Vienna museums last exposition: "Men"

The photograph on the advertisement was the following one and no, on the original advertisement, there was no censorship bar. ^^

Pfft, you think you've got problems, read up on the history of Little Sister's Book and Art Emporium and its ongoing struggles with Canada Customs.

Customs authorities exist in their own, peculiar legal world in which many of the protections that we take for granted in our liberal regimes are nonexistent. We are subject to involuntary search, to summary seizure of goods, to imposition of fines and penalties without trial and there is no presumption of innocence. The police and the criminal justice system are rank amateurs when compared with customs and taxation authorities.

Is it ongoing though? It sounds to me as though it was all sorted out about ten years ago.

dp

Last edited by Surfman on 14 Jan 2013, 2:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

From the article in the OP:
A spokeswoman said: 'As well as seizing drugs and offensive weapons, our officers are the front line of enforcing laws preventing the importation of indecent and obscene material to the UK.'

Customs. Holding the fort against the lewd, crude, rude, bag of pre-chewed food dude since the Virgin Birth of Jesus.

It strikes me as insane as Customs never touch the vast majority of adult porn these days.

It most assuredly is. The Supreme Court of Canada found that the enabling legislation offended section 2 of the Charter but was saved by section 1. So the legal basis for CBSA to seize material still exists. The Supremes did eliminate the reverse onus in obscenity matters (a small victory) and found the implementation of the law to be discriminatory. But neither of these things have done much to abate CBSA's practices.

There was another round of litigation in 2002-2005, when Little Sisters challenged new seizures, and were subsequently denied "advanced costs" as a means of meeting their substantial legal costs in what was going to wind up as a protracted legal battle. There is no appetite at Little Sisters to throw good money after bad to fund litigation. So they swallow their losses, and CBSA goes on unchecked.

I'm sorry to hear that. It's pretty clearly discriminatory and I'm amazed that it happens in a liberal, secular and, well, civilised country like Canada. It's the sort of thing I might have expected in 1960s/1970s Britain, not the Canada of 2013.

Why on earth does a team who plays in the WRU Division Four East need IRB approval?
Nantyglo RFC are a member of the WRU, so don't you think that the Welsh Rugby Union would be first to deal with the issue.
Really I think that the IRB would let a founding member (WRU) take care of there own business before stepping in.

The IRB is based in Dublin, so was right do they have in tipping off the UK Border Agency?
It was a Welsh club that done this, so let Undeb Rygbi Cymru take care of the matter if they wish to!

Meanwhile, entirely within the borders of the United Kingdom:

http://warwickrowing.org/shop.php?Doc=nakedcalendar

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go to my happy place for a little while, now.

Oh, I dunno, there's something for lovers of skirt too!

Most assuredly so. You go to your happy place, I'll go to mine, and the the University of Warwick rowers be properly enriched.

....seized because it's pornographic?

Of all the things for customs to steal, they grab porn. Seriously?

It's not even porn. It's a non-nude calendar that isn't even full-frontal!

Hardcore adult porn is almost never touched by HMRC (unless it's to levy a charge on the contents, which is nicely added to by Royal Mail, who add a ludicrous 'surcharge' - nice little earner for them) unless the contents are seriously out there. Of course, bestiality and child porn and seriously extreme adult porn would be touched, but the rest of it is left alone.

Which is why I find this story so utterly ludicrous.